#362 – Kylie Thompson

Kylie Thompson (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary performer, creator and educator residing in Toronto, Ontario. She considers herself an ally to the BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ communities and is committed to ongoing education, conversation and action towards equality and de-colonization of Western Dance practices. She holds an honours degree in Kinesiology from McMaster University, and has trained in classical, contemporary and street dance styles and has also developed a practice in photography. After having served on the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists-East board of Directors for 5 years, she is passionate about arts advocacy and independent production. She has produced numerous works both in the theatre and on the screen; some of which include “Versus”, “33/33”, “Oh, Yes” and “Femmillennial”; and she is honoured to have been part of such festivals as New Blue, Dance: Made in Canada, Toronto Fringe, Choreographer’s Ball, and more. Her commercial credits include Barenaked Ladies, Kiesza, TIFF, Finger Eleven, Lionsgate Films and more. A passionate educator; her teaching practice has spanned various disciplines but is currently focused on release-based floor work; having trained with and drawn inspiration from Alias Dance Project, Vim Vigor Dance, Elke Schroeder and many other influential dance theatre companies. This year she will take her self-produced production “Femmillennial” on the road to Orlando and Vancouver Fringe Festivals.

kyliethompsoncreative.com
Twitter: @itskyliethomps1
Instagram: @kyliethompsoncreative

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Transcript

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Phil Rickaby
I’m Phil Rickaby and I’ve been a writer and performer for almost 30 years. But I’ve realized that I don’t really know as much as I should about the theatre scene outside of my particular Toronto bubble. Now, I’m on a quest to learn as much as I can about the theatre scene across Canada. So join me as I talk with mainstream theatre creators, you may have heard of an indie artist you really should know, as we find out just what it takes to be Stageworthy.

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Kylie Thompson is a dance artist and photographer based in Toronto. Her full length dance production fair millennial is part of the 2023 Orlando fringe, she joined me to talk about her dance journey, how she balances art and entrepreneurship. Her inspiration for creating premillennial and much more. Here’s our conversation

all right. So one of things I I will I will be upfront. I don’t I don’t talk to a lot of dancers. And that’s that’s not because I don’t like dancers. That’s that’s just it’s more I’ve spoken. I’ve spoken to a few dancers over the seven years of this podcast, obviously they they outnumber, they’re outnumbered by the theatre artists. Part of the issue is that as as an actor, there’s to me there’s like there’s a maybe it’s just in my in my mind, there’s a bit of a separation between Theatre and Dance, although sometimes they come together in these amazing moments. So I’ll be upfront about that. But as far as as dance goes, what is it that draws you to dance? What is it that drew you to dance as a choreographer and a dancer?

Kylie Thompson
You know, that question is something that isn’t even necessarily like, on my radar because it’s been a part of my life for so long. My parents put me in band. There’s no unique story about my upbringing in dance. You know, I started at three years old, I went to a studio, I did it very full time. Growing up, I competed in dance. And then I went to university not for dance, but then came back to dance. And in a nutshell, but I think what draws me to dance in general, okay, the main thing that draws me to it within my own practice and, and like where I find myself in spaces in rehearsals and performance, is that I continue to learn what I believe to be very, like valuable, just general life information and information about people through dance in, I think, exceptionally interesting way. So whether it be through contact improvisation, or whether it be through just navigating choreography with other people or navigating my own Korean choreographic craft process, well, my own choreographic process with dancers, it just teaches me so much about myself in the process. And the people that I work with, that’s the thing that’s the first thing that come to mind. And if I can come up with a fun example of what I mean by those types of those like aha moments, I’ll let you know but I definitely know I’ve had a lot of them. Yeah. And yeah, I love I love theatre in general or being in the theatre, be in the theatre like Can’t say I’ve been to a lot of plays. I’ve been to a decent number of musical. I’ve been to obviously a lot of Dance Theatre. And I love I love the feeling of it. I love. I love live dance. I’m also into dance film. Yeah, the physicality, the the athleticism, combined with the artistry and the drama and the expressionism. I would say about sums it up.

Phil Rickaby
But you mentioned that your parents had to put you in dance when you were I think you said three. And was there any particular reason why they felt this child needs dance? Or was it just like they it was a great opportunity to have you move?

Kylie Thompson
That sound like a question? Maybe I should perhaps ask my dad again, one of these days, not something we’ve chatted about recently. Like I definitely haven’t frequently heard the story of like, Oh, she was a rambunctious kid, or she was always twirling around and we put her in debt. But I would imagine that was somewhat the case. And you know, I come from a bit of a musical background in my family, not dance. But my grandparents on my mom’s side. And my mom were both musicians like fan musician. My mom played the clarinet. My grandma played the piano. But yeah, I honestly, I don’t know what that moment was. It wasn’t there wasn’t like a friend of a family that was in dance. So they put me in it was just they found this local studio. I grew up in Barry. The studio was called keeping time who will dance. And yeah, there we were.

Phil Rickaby
But at some point, you, you know, a lot of people go into dance when they’re young. And at some point, often during the teenage years, they give it up. And a lot of people don’t come back to it. Just like a lot of people. They do some theatre when they’re in high school, and they they like it, but they’re like, that’s the way to make a living, and then they give it up. But for other people, there’s something that clicks and it becomes a thing that they want to do. Do you remember what moment was for you that where you were like, This is what I’m going to do?

Kylie Thompson
Yeah, I could pray. You know, from a young age, I would say there’s like two kind of key moments at a young age. I haven’t documented that I wrote down that I wanted to be a teacher, like when I was eight, like I looked up to my dance teachers and I wanted to own my own studio. And that’s what I wrote down that I would be when I grew up. And then I definitely had another moment in university that was studying kinesiology. I was probably in my graduating year, I had made one of my still to this day best friends. Her name’s Amy. And we met through extracurricular dance at university. And in that those programme, I, I just they were beyond what I could have ever expected from extra curricular activity and university. So I learned so much in that university dance world. And there was one night when we were out at a club, you know, drinking like we were just out one night in the in probably fourth year university and Amy looked at me just like on the dance floor and she was like, you want to pursue dance. Right? And in that moment, I was like, Yeah, and it was felt like I was like, admitting it to myself, you know, right. Yeah, I hadn’t really said it out loud or like decided that at that point, because I was still in school and I was still in kinesiology and Yeah, still up in the air about it. But yeah, I remember that moment pretty clearly we were at a club and Waterloo randomly.

Phil Rickaby
Well, obviously, I mean, sometimes you have to say something out loud to make it like true, right? You know, it’s like somewhere deep. And you don’t even realise it’s there until you until you say the words like, yeah, you want to be a dancer, you’re going to pursue dance. And up until that point, you’re like Kinesiology. That’s the thing I’m going to do and then and then the truth just sort of comes out and you’re like, oh, that’s the truth.

Kylie Thompson
Yeah, I had a certain point you can’t ignore the the signals and the signs and the energy that the universe is giving you and I had met all these great people in university and opportunities were presenting themselves not necessarily, you know, work opportunities right away, but like, meeting people in Toronto, I was living in Hamilton for school and so people from Toronto would often come because we’re so close and that kind of, you know, where the dance club in Canada is, was was is it’s just a sad time anyways, there was a lot going on in Toronto there still is obviously but from My living in Hamilton perspective, right? So all these people were coming, and it was learning and training. And I was like, I want more of this, like, I’m not done with this, you know?

Phil Rickaby
Where would you say the dead? Is there a dance hub in Canada right now? Or is it just really spread out?

Kylie Thompson
I would honestly say that Vancouver seems to be a strong kind of poll right now. I’m sure a lot of people would argue that and it kind of depends, you know, if you’re talking about commercial bands, or in or if you’re talking about contemporary theatre, Dan, you know, kind of two different things. And there’s a lot of contemporary theatre going on in Montreal in particular. But there’s more commercial work going on in Vancouver because of its proximity to LA. But then there’s also a quite a decent amount of theatre stuff going on in Vancouver, too. Now, again, that being said, there is a lot going on in Toronto, but I know a lot of dentists who have moved out of Toronto, to Vancouver, recently. And so, yeah, I would say it’s kind of that kind of the place to be right now.

Phil Rickaby
Interesting. Interesting, because I probably would have guessed Montreal, but yeah, the Vancouver thing makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Okay, tell me about femoral lineal.

Kylie Thompson
Okay. Okay, good job. You pronounced that correctly. Got it. So premillennial is a hour long Contemporary Dance Theatre peak for three women. I began working on it back in 2019. It was originally titled, oh, yes, it created a peak for five dancers for the death made in Canada festival. And after that festival happened, I knew I wanted to continue with the work, develop it into a full length, evening work. And then, you know, shortly after that, six months later, when the pandemic hit throughout the pandemic, you know, we researched, we worked on some thing, we had some cast changes, the work became a trio. And then I really ramped up and really kind of took it in a strong direction in the direction of premillennial, when I got into the 2022, Toronto Fringe Festival. And so yeah, it’s an abstract work. It’s the non narrative work, there’s no story per se, the characters are played, the dancers play themselves. Their names are Dana, Claire, and Kira. They are wonderful human being all very physical movers, but all with such unique personalities. And you could say that the work is a study on not personality, identity. The idea of a femme millennial. So, you know, that being a portmanteau of feminist and millennial, which is something that I identify as. And I’m just interested in the idea of that, that idea of an involved feminist, a different kind of feminist, like, what does it mean to be a feminist in this day and age and also? Yeah, just generally speaking, kind of one identity, that the idea of intersectionality, which has been very popular, and, you know, pop culture in the last few years. And as I say, it’s an abstract work. So all of these themes, you know, also, women drove me xiety. women’s roles in the workforce are things that we’ve talked about a lot, women as icons, or women as role models, whether it be our own personal family members, or whether it be women in the media. Or we’re in the just world in general. All of that became material that I was interested in and curious about. And so from there, you know, movement ideas come out. And one thing that duck very clearly from the original inception of the piece that was called Oh, yes, is the use of a button up shirt. I’ve not only a costume but also a prop. So it’s a very strong line within the piece. This shirt that the dancers take on and off and do choreography with. Yeah, I would say that is it in a nutshell.

Phil Rickaby
So you mentioned that you were the performance as part of the 2022 Fringe Festival in Toronto. Yeah. What was I mean, that was the first in person fringe in three years or what Ever like for the pandemic? So what was what was getting back in front of an audience? Like what was it like presenting this in front of people again.

Kylie Thompson
And it was great. I loved the theatre that we’re in, which is the AQI studio theatre with a new face that I’ve never worked in. I’d seen other shows in there, but it has a really nice intimacy about it. Great for Dan, great for a small death P. Because it you know, again, not intimate, the first row of chairs is right on the floor with the dancer. But honestly, I wouldn’t say that I excelled her, I kept my practice up in many different ways during the pandemic. Producing theatre isn’t something that I’ve done, a tonne of, in general. So if there are any new feelings of Jiro anxiousness or, or that just because it’s generally new to me, like if not, because pandemic I mean, I’ve choreographed dances for stage pretty much for like 20 years now but to actually, you know, basically produce your own show and a full length show of like, you know, professional calibre with professional dancers. That’s obviously different. So yeah, I had a great experience at the 2022 fringe. You know, we’ve sold good amount of ticket audiences were lovely. We Yeah, we party. We were we were right in there. We went to, you know, events or and network and met some really great people. And I love the Fringe Festival. I also participated in 2016, with another company that I had, so it wasn’t my first rodeo. But it definitely felt different than the first time I would say,

Phil Rickaby
Oh, I would imagine so. Yeah,

Kylie Thompson
yeah. Yeah, that festival itself, I feel like also really grew and expanded and became more robust and more thorough everything being online, the communication was sharp and clear, like clear. And yeah, it was great, great experience.

Phil Rickaby
Great. Now, what’s happening with summer, lineal the summer.

Kylie Thompson
So in just over two weeks, we are travelling to the Orlando Fringe Festival. Which open we opened may 90, and then in Vancouver, will travel to the Vancouver fringe that opened September 7. Love it. That’s a good,

Phil Rickaby
that’s a good, that’s a good long time between the two. For a lot of people, there are two fringes that tend to kick off their tours, Orlando or Montreal, but a lot of people will do both Orlando and then do Montreal, and then work their way across. Orlando is is quite well known in the fringe circuit for being a good starter.

Kylie Thompson
Really? Okay. Did you know that? Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
I haven’t been but I’ve heard good things about it from people who who go regularly, so should be a good fringe. Are you excited about taking this this show? This dead show outside of Canada?

Kylie Thompson
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I’ve done in the states a little bit. I’ve danced overseas a little bit. I love to travel in general, I travelled with group, sort of look for, I guess, not groups that I’ve led, but I’ve travelled with other group like to Dan and, and I love that energy. Everyone is just, there’s so much growth that happen in a short period of time. You know, you’re you’re just on like, you’re, you’re networking and you’re reaching out, and especially with the friends you have to do your own marketing. So it just forces you to get out there and and make those connections. And yeah, I mean, various theories, quite a robust like dance scene in Orlando, which, you know, I wouldn’t I definitely don’t think of it as like, oh, that’s the hub of dancing in the state. We’ve got, you know, LA and New York just as same as the rest of the entertainment industry. But I’m very excited to make some make some new connections. And I’ve already been in contact with lots of people. And I mean, there’s some interesting stuff going on politically in Florida right now. So I’m curious to see like, if that will be tangible, like when we’re down there. I don’t even really know the ins and outs of it. I’m not big into like political news, and especially when it comes to the US. It’s just not something that’s huge on my radar. Maybe will become, though one day, but I’ll be curious to see if there’s any like feeling of that while we’re down there

Phil Rickaby
did oh, it was interesting to see what the feel of a different places. I always found when I went when I was touring Fringe Festivals, it’s interesting to sort of like land in a new place. And try to get your bearings both like not just physically, but also like, what do they like here? Like, every because every place, you can be a hit in one town, and then go to another pace. And they’re just not interested in what you’ve got. So Right. It’s like, every time you start, it’s like, you feel like it’s a sprint. And then but it turns out over over a tour, it’s actually a marathon because every time you start, you start a new fringe. You’re starting over,

Kylie Thompson
right? Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Phil Rickaby
One thing I’m curious about actually is, is as far as, as your personal style goes, as far as like choreography, what does a Kiley Thompson piece feel like? Look like? Are there particular things that are are your hallmarks? As far as dance and choreography go?

Kylie Thompson
Yeah, I would say so. I, I love physicality. I practice floor work and practice rolling and tumbling, and quite reeling and inverting. And we also practice pretty physical partnering. And so, you know, in the dance world, you could you refer to it as kind of like not so typical. In the ballet world, it’s called how to do it, right. And it’s always the man lifting the woman in a classical ballet, always. Not in our work, the women are lifting the other women, and anyone can lift anyone if you have the right physics going on. And so in that regard, it looks it, it definitely is outside of the classical. Bach the line, you know, the turn, the neat is, is, is definitely like, rotate, and expands and jump off the floor and leaps and then leaps and roll. What the? If someone is used to watching classical ballet, it’s going to look very different. Now, am I do I consider myself super unique? In the current contemporary dance scene? No, not necessarily. Like, I’m not. I’m not reinventing the wheel necessarily with what I’m doing. But that’s what I like, that’s what I like to watch. So I’ve made it my purpose to Yeah, like I’ve gone and trained in New York with teachers and gone over and trained in Europe. And, you know, you one might argue that, I guess Europe is the real, like, hub of contemporary dance, they seem to be just always a little bit ahead of kind of where we’re at, and what our audiences are after. Arguably, but some, yeah, and it’s a little bit funky. Like, it’s, I also have a big, like, love for hip hop, and how Dan, and I’ve trained in whacking and sort of this whole kind of opposite end from ballet, which is what I grew up doing. So, you know, for a while we were calling it contemporary fusion, but that terminology has sort of gone by the wayside a little bit more, because you would argue that well, contemporary work, already is a fusion. Right have been its terminology is a funny thing. But um, yeah, I would say, Yeah, I would say that that how I would describe my job. Did you grow?

Phil Rickaby
Did you sort of, like grow out of ballet? Because you mentioned sort of like being starting in ballet. What was it that made

Kylie Thompson
you out of broke up, I broke up with ballet kind of turn 20 Or, like when I hit University, I just found so much other things and dance that I wanted to have where I really fell in love with hip hop was in university I pretty much focused on that for a couple of years. Then I started then contemporary dance started to kind of come into the mainstream a bit more cyclical. Okay, once this started taking classes and not yet and then it took me a while to realise like I knew I wasn’t training in ballet, and I wasn’t missing it. And I was like, What is like, what, what’s going on and bear because I did so much as a kid and I think that that’s exactly why I think I just kind of like, ran it into the ground. I was over it. Hence why I started rolling around on the floor because I grew up only dancing on my feet. I grew up, never improvising. I grew up only learning like set work and learning other people’s choreography. So I had this hunger to like, let go of that and learn how to freestyle and learn how to embrace improvise. But yeah, definitely took a nice hiatus from ballet. And now I find myself craving it and missing it again. Which is nice. And I don’t necessarily train in it, but I do have my own pseudo ballet practice sometime.

Phil Rickaby
Is there something about it that you particularly miss when you do miss it? Is there something about the movements? Something about the music? What is it that you miss about it when you miss it?

Kylie Thompson
Um, okay, yes, I would say I miss the music, but I often practice ballet movement can non classical music because I prefer hip hop music, for example. The movement is very, it has you really working on externally like rotating your body in a general sense. Opening, extending, lengthening, which feels very nice. Like I definitely missed that. And, and, yeah, I felt like that was a little bit missing in my general practice, and also the work in terms of balance. It’s such a good practice for your balance and your coordination. So I’d say those are the main things that I would missing like from a super kind of nerdy, just movement, perspective point of view. But yeah,

Phil Rickaby
yeah. Now I know that that I mean, you you’ve mentioned about how the the merging of theatre and dance as far as what you’ve seen about those two coming together aside from like, musical theatre, which is like the, when you think about dance and theatre, that’s where my mind immediately goes is like, dance and musical theatre. But as far as like indie theatre and movement and dance, what kind of things are you seeing in the world, in Toronto, that that really excites you?

Kylie Thompson
Okay, well, lots of like I was mentioning before this, like contemporary pada. Or just like partnering is what it is. Lifting, throwing people, you start to see technique, other movement technique creeping into dance, so wrestling, acrobatic, like hand to hand like, cheerleading, lift, right, basket tossing, like, there’s so many unique ways that people are throwing each other around on phage is incredible. And not just at the professional level, either, like in youth dance as well. So we’re seeing a lot of that we’re seeing a lot of kind of stripped down, hair down really like visceral feeling primitive searing movement. And we are seeing a lot of site specific dance happening. A lot of audience participation, dance, immersive dance. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of bleep no more than like the king pants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the immersive Dance Theatre. Yeah, a lot of just parallels between what what advance and what is just a pedestrian human being a lot of gestural festa, who’s crystal pite influence. She’s from Vancouver, she’s a massive in the global contemporary dance scene. Her work is extremely gestural, and it’s almost mining. You know what I mean? It’s, it’s very storytelling, but it’s so intricate. Whereas a mind will take their time to, like, kind of really make you understand the story. The way that a dancer might gesture might be incredibly quick, and, and like almost animalistic. And you won’t necessarily understand the story that they’re telling, but you’ll recognise the ISM, you’ll you’ll you’ll feel them, you know, I don’t know, do like a very human gesture and through it. It’s much more I guess, abstract than mining might be. Yeah, I would say those are things that I’ve seen that I liked that I that’s difficult that are going on. Yeah,

Phil Rickaby
yeah. Um, want to call back to something you mentioned earlier about about producing at the fringe. And part of that is having to do your own promotion, which is often the scariest thing that people end up doing. When they end up producing their own work. It’s sometimes It’s also one of the last things people consider. And it’s one of the most important, but it’s the most frightening. The social media is one of the really effective ways to bring out an audience. And the way that that we all use social media is is is kind of different. I mean, I’m, I’m Gen X. And so I think I have a more distant relationship with with social media than then a millennial or a or or Gen Z does, definitely more than than Gen Z. But it’s still something that is so necessary, I think, especially now to bring out an audience not just infringe, but otherwise, what is it for you? What excites you about about promoting dance promoting your projects in social media? And what can you do with social media that you that you couldn’t do otherwise?

Kylie Thompson
Well, you can, and this is why I like dance. This is one of the reasons why I like dance film, as well as you can be so much more detail, you can see so much more in terms of facial expression, emotion in that regard, but then you can also be aspects of the band from different angles that you wouldn’t necessarily get from sitting just in a row in a theatre. I think, like blown wide open the idea of talking about dance. Which is, I think, really important to do. And I think it kind of comes back to what I was saying before about, like, the lessons are these things about life and I learned while I’m practising then if we just like a dance give us something to talk about, especially contemporary dance, when the work is non narrative, or when it or when it’s narrative. There’s always things to talk about. But, you know, for me, I get very, very curious, watching abstract, dance word, be an image, I see two people or three people or a group of people doing something physically. But no one’s telling me what it is that they’re doing. So I’m guessing in my head, okay, what are they doing? And then afterward, you know, we talk about it. And I think when it comes to social media you’re always going to be seeing some dance, not always, but you’ll often see some dance and then you’ll have a caption. And you’ll get different information than you would just see Matt Dan from the first play. Or you know, a lot of behind this I love I love the behind the scene, like social media trend, right? Everyone is showing everyone in busting everything wide open. Really? Like there’s no, there seems to be no secrets anymore. Whether you’re in the film world in the I really actually don’t see much social media about theatre and I’m sure that’s just my algorithm. But right like everyone’s like come behind the scenes with me at this look Herschel come behind the scenes with me for this video shoot other a show you exactly how we did it. Because that’s what people want watch on social media. I mean, as a creator, I guess, I guess that’s what I want to watch. Maybe I can’t speak for everyone. But I want to see how it’s done. And people are very willing to share that information.

Phil Rickaby
I think there’s something there’s something about about that, behind the scenes look, that is not just for other creators, but the things that we as creators, as performers do, to our audience, because they never see behind the scenes, as far as they’re concerned. It’s just magic. Like, somebody waves their hands, and suddenly there’s dance, suddenly, there’s theatre, something suddenly there’s singing, and all of this stuff, and all of the pieces that go into it are fascinating in the same way that people love watching like a and they always have like the behind the scenes of of movies and what the special effects were done all that sort of stuff. Everybody’s always been fascinated by that stuff. And that behind the curtain is like, kind of the thing that we can give people through social media that they can’t have otherwise, because they can’t peer into the into the rehearsal hall in any other way.

Kylie Thompson
Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly. That’s exactly it. Yeah, I honestly can’t. I mean, okay. I said to someone the other day, I said, if dance isn’t peaking right now. I’m going to be I’ll be shocked because the rate at which content and practices and techniques are being shared because of the internet and so Social media, if everybody is feeding off of everybody and learning things, they would have never been able to learn from someone in another country to then elevate their practice and elevate their community. And so dance is just like I’d say the things that people are doing on stage these days. Like the rate at which that’s accelerated from, say, even like the 60s 70s 80s. And then, yeah, it blows my mind sometime. I just have to wonder, like, there’s, is there more? Or are like, is the forum peaking right now? Because I really, I don’t know. And I would honestly, I think I could make a solid argument that it is I think, like I was saying before, we’re starting to see more like theatricality kind of come back into them. So it’s almost like dance has bounced off this like super hyper physical wall and is now starting to come back to more classical theatrical techniques like miming. There’s a lot of voice work happening in contemporary dance a lot of the game. So yes, it’s interesting. I really have I’m so curious to see where we’re gonna go from here where we’re gonna be in five years.

Phil Rickaby
Do you think that the Prolift the proliferate proliferation of of, of dances on Tik Tok are sort of like sending or bringing more people into the dance fold. I remember, just a few months ago, everybody was doing the dance for Matilda. Everybody was like learning the dance from from from the song naughty and everybody was doing that online and all that sort of stuff. There’s all of these like, the these people dancing who maybe never had before? Is that adding to to the dance vocabulary adding to the the peaking of dance? Do you think?

Kylie Thompson
Yeah, if you I am. I teach adult dance? Sometime, like adult beginner dance? That world has exploded? So many adults take dance class, whereas growing up, I wouldn’t have I didn’t know any. Any people that did that. I mean, again, sometimes I’m like, Okay, I’m referring to my childhood, but maybe what do I know, but I really feel strongly that they like adult beginner dance culture. Or adult firing denture culture. Like I’ve seen. I’ve seen it all I’ve seen you know, 50 year old people hit staid, like, not in a professional way. And their friends and family come to watch like, it’s not just little girl than cute shoes at six years old who are doing recital anymore, right? I think there’s a there’s an amateur field of dance that has really expanded, which, in turn, be it all, like feeds upwards, right? Because you can have these facilities that have these like base programmes, where people will come and pay to take class and like soccer business. But then we can then take that those funds and feed it into like a company, let’s say to create professional bands. Right, like, it’s all funny word. But um, yeah. And then because of again, because of tick tock dances Mark festival to a lot of people because now it gives people a reason to get up and dance when they’re home. Because what’s motivating somebody to get up and dance at home alone? Right? Well, now you can put a video of yourself dancing online, get some getting a dopamine hit from it set. Like I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I do it too. And it is a way of sharing and communicating, I think. But more people are dancing. Now. It’s cooler to death now. It used to be crazy. And now it’s cool. It’s

Phil Rickaby
nice. Now as as an artist and entrepreneur, how do you find the balance between the art and the business?

Kylie Thompson
Out? That is a great question.

Phil Rickaby
If the answer is I’m still figuring it out. That’s also a valid it’s

Kylie Thompson
honestly, you know, I definitely think I’m still working toward the place of of balance and, and harmony. I think we all are, I think if you’re you know to achieve like a steady state of balance, it’s like physically impossible. So it’s always a work in progress, and I’ve embraced that back um, I lately, let me I’ve been working my butt off, okay, like, I’m sure you have to like we all are. We live in the city of Toronto like we are here and we’re ready to grind like we’ve got thing going on every day. But yeah, I work. I work in I do certain jobs they don’t necessarily want to do to be able to fund my creative endeavours. But I think I’m pretty lucky to have mostly found jobs that are still related to my field. Like, I don’t know, I don’t have a job job, per se. Everything that I’m doing currently is related to the field of art. Okay, so blipped what I can’t, I can’t complain about that. And yeah, I really, I think it just comes down to like, taking care of yourself and being healthy and trying to be mindful. And it’s just I’ve also learned to treat my rehearsal time for my creation. More sacredly not, it’s just not another activity in the week, it’s it is a special time. And I’ve learned to treat it as such, and take care of it a little bit more and nourish it a little bit more and really turn my focus on more sharply for those periods of time. So yeah, I think it’s just been learning how that flow happens. And just being prepared. And, you know, you go through one rehearsal process, you learn from it, and then you’re better prepared for the next one, though,

Phil Rickaby
do you find that you are that you have tips or tricks for being able to drop one thing, so the business aspect and focusing on the rehearsal so that it’s not, the other thing that you just left behind is not still a top of mind, because I know that for a lot of us, when we’re doing so many things, each one is sort of like occupying a bit of our brain, and then you get to rehearsal where you need to be like, so focused on the thing that you’re doing, you need some way that you can take those things that aren’t helpful to the rehearsal and like, sort of, like take them off and put them on the table over there for a while.

Kylie Thompson
I think a lot of that has to do Yeah, with the clothes you wear and like how you bring yourself into certain scenarios and sort of the roar you step into, in both scenarios. For me, it has a lot to do with just like taking a pause, whether she’s like in my car briefly before I go in the studio and just being like, okay, like, what energy do I want to bring through the door with me right now, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, how you start the day. So I really try to treat that moment with a lot of care. But yeah, it’s hard, as you say it is, it is really hard to turn off certain parts of your brain, you know, in terms of my like workflow, and I’m doing some producing work right now. And so I use things like the Pomodoro Technique, not even, not even like, specifically, but like, I’ll set a timer for 30 minutes and say, like, do not check social media, like, you must focus on this work for 30 minutes. And then hard cut off work. I tried to stick to like some scheduling like that sometimes, which I find works pretty well for me.

Phil Rickaby
Pomodoro is so helpful just to have like a timer that says, Okay, you’re going to work for 20 minutes, and then you get a break like that, you know, you get a break. And instead of like trying to be like, I’m just going to work, I’m just gonna work, I’m just going to work, which your brain just gets tired. And then all of a sudden you find yourself you’re looking at your phone and you don’t remember when you picked it up. And it’s such a helpful tool. And I recommend it to anybody, just if you have focused time to like just use that technique just to break it up and know that there’s focus time and then there’s a break and then there’s focus time and there’s a break.

Kylie Thompson
Absolutely, yeah. 100% it something about that reward that break at the end, okay.

Phil Rickaby
salutely Absolutely. Now, you are in addition to being a choreographer, you’re also a photographer. Tell me how that started for you and how that marries into your, your whole artistic practice.

Kylie Thompson
Um, you said photographer, yeah, Correct, yes. That started for me in I want to say two, one P, his key in where I got my first like DSLR camera and said, Alright, I want to like be a photographer because it’s that’s a tough one to explain something it’s about capturing moment also. Okay, what I what I realised at one point with photography is it gave me a little bit of a wicker satisfaction in terms of producing something tangible, finished. Okay, and then takes a long time. Dance take forever, and then, and then you had two performances and it’s over, like, Okay, I don’t necessarily think about it that way, I think of every rehearsal as an opportunity to perform, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But in the grand scheme of thing, dance is a pick a lot to produce, because we’re using our bodies as as our tools, etc. Whereas I can go out whenever I want, I don’t even need another person. I can capture it in and work on it. And it’s done. And I can share it with the world and feel good about it. I think there’s, there’s something to that for me. And then yeah, it became a real parallel to my dance work. And a lot of dance artists need images and need, yeah, content of themselves, dancing and moving. It’s a visual form, right? So I started to get a little bit of work in, in photography, because of the people and the connections I had in the dance world. So you know, that helped it along. I love getting up early for like, you know, golden hour type lighting. I like that photography forces me to do that. Because none of those quiet moments in the world are just some of the best. Like, you’re alone, you’re in the street, maybe you’re in a different city, and you get to experience an environment in a really like, just natural state where there’s not other humans and pedestrian contaminating it. So I love I love that aspect of photography. Yeah.

Phil Rickaby
Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s funny, because you mentioned that the immediacy of it or years ago, I had the opportunity to work on a short film, with a couple of, of, of, they were directing it, they’d created this thing. But they were animators by trade. So they like they were so excited to do something live action, because it was it would be they would like shoot it and it would be like essentially done. And they didn’t have to spend weeks and weeks and weeks drawing like one one movement and they were so excited by immediacy. It’s funny how how, like a slight a different artistic practice can suddenly bring out your, your artistic self in a way as soon as you just change the discipline.

Kylie Thompson
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s amazing. Really, I’m what I really want to do is find a way that they can come together like as purely as possible. I’m like, kind of getting there and then just like developing my skills on both sides, but yeah, I think, like, I’m kind of already doing that. Like, I’m kind of taking like some video stuff and like projecting it on to a screen while dancers dance in front, like, but is that necessarily like the most purest melding of the forms? Like not necessarily, but yeah, I think there’s a lot of possibility there. And, and yeah, I just love capturing other people’s movement because I love watching other people dance. So it just is kind of a bonus that people aren’t willing to pay me to do it. So it’s just a nice little bonus side hustle. That also feel creative, and creatively fulfilling.

Phil Rickaby
That’s great. That’s great. Well, Kylie, thank you so much for joining me tonight. I really appreciate it.

Kylie Thompson
Thank you. This was a wonderful chat. Thanks for having me.

Phil Rickaby
This has been an episode of Stageworthy Stageworthy is produced, hosted and edited by PhilRickaby. That’s me. If you enjoyed this podcast and you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, you can leave a five star rating. And if you’re listening on Apple podcast, you can also leave a review. Those reviews and ratings help new people find the show. If you want to keep up with what’s going on with Stageworthy and my other projects, you can subscribe to my newsletter by going to philrickaby.com/subscribe. And remember, if you want to leave a tip, you’ll find a link to the virtual tip jar in the show notes or on the website. You can find Stageworthy on Twitter and Instagram at stageworthypod. And you can find the website but the complete archive of all episodes at stageworthy.ca. If you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at PhilRickaby. And as I mentioned, my website is philrickaby.com See you next week for another episode of Stageworthy